“Love, Simon” is the first major motion picture starring a gay teenager who is coming to terms with his sexuality. Over the years several movies surrounding a gay character have been released, like the recent critically-acclaimed films “Moonlight” and “Call Me By Your Name.” Despite those movies being extremely good and Academy Award winners, they don’t compare to “Love, Simon” in the sense of how mainstream it was. “Love, Simon” has a new greater representation that hasn’t been well executed in the past in Hollywood, which is surprising considering it is 2018 and being gay is no longer considered a taboo topic.

“Love, Simon,” released March 26, is the adaptation of Becky Albertalli’s novel, “Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda.” The movie is a classic coming-of-age romantic comedy that tells the story of 17-year-old Simon Spier, a high school student who lives a completely normal, happy life aside from the fact that he is hiding his homosexuality from his family and friends. Another kid at Simon’s school anonymously comes out as gay via a gossip blog that is popular amongst the students at his school. Simon emails the boy and despite neither of them knowing each other’s identity, they end up falling in love via email.

In recent years, movies with a stronger representation for people of color and strong female leads, like “Black Panther” and “Wonder Woman,” have been released and have done amazing at the box office. But despite all this newfound representation for people who aren’t often portrayed in the media, the LGBTQ+ community has unfortunately missed out on this wave of representation.

“Even if we don’t want to believe that making a movie about a gay teenager is risky, Hollywood still does,” wrote Stephen Daws for Billboard.com. It’s ridiculous that in this day and age, the movie industry is still afraid to make movies about something as common being gay.

This is exactly why such a widespread movie like “Love, Simon” is so important for the LGBTQ+ community and a huge step forward for Hollywood. The representation that “Love, Simon” has brought upon the movie industry is necessary because young people who might be confused about their sexuality would see a queer person on the big screen and think to themselves, ‘Hey, maybe what I’m feeling isn’t so weird after all!’